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Samsung unveiled its latest lineup of flagship phones, the Galaxy S24 series, during the company’s Unpacked event on January 17 and released the phones on January 31.
Samsung’s new lineup includes the Galaxy S24, Galaxy S24 Plus, and Galaxy S24 Ultra. Beyond the usual processor upgrade that comes with every new generation, each Galaxy S24 model got other updates, ranging from design tweaks, changes to screen sizes, and a big change to the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s headlining camera specs.
Samsung’s leading upgrade, however, is AI powered by Qualcomm and Google, which enables helpful features and enhancements to photography.
All these upgrades combined to ensure that most of Samsung’s latest Galaxy S24 phones placed in our guides to the best Android phones and best Samsung phones.
Samsung Galaxy S24: Price and release date
The base Galaxy S24 starts at $799.99, the Galaxy S24 Plus at $999.99, and the Galaxy S24 Ultra at $1,299.99. That’s familiar pricing for Samsung’s premium flagship phones, except the Galaxy S24 Ultra is $100 more than the previous generation.
Samsung released the Galaxy S24 phones on January 31, with availability from retailers like Amazon and Best Buy. The phones are also available to purchase through carriers and from Samsung’s website.
Trade-in offers from Samsung and carriers can go a long way in making the new Galaxy S24 phones more affordable. Depending on your old phone and which Galaxy S24 model you’re looking to buy, you could get a new phone for free.
Samsung Galaxy S24: New features
For the Galaxy S24 lineup, Samsung made a few changes to every model, but the Galaxy S24 Ultra received the bulk of the updates over previous models.
All of Samsung’s Galaxy S24 phones run on the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 Optimized for Galaxy processor from Qualcomm. As expected, the Galaxy S24 series offers among the smoothest and fastest experiences, either in light or heavy use. In terms of benchmarks, the Galaxy S24 series also scored the highest among the other Android phones we’ve tested in 2024.
Samsung made some minor changes to screen size compared to previous generations. The base Galaxy S24 model is now 6.2 inches instead of 6.1, and the Galaxy S24 Plus is now 6.7 inches rather than 6.6 inches. The Galaxy S24 Ultra is the same 6.8 inches as previous models, but Samsung did finally, and thankfully, ditch the curved display edges for flat edges.
As we note in our Galaxy S24 Ultra review, the Ultra model’s metal body has changed from aluminum to titanium, which may have contributed to a slightly thinner design. Otherwise, the Galaxy S24 Ultra isn’t any lighter than previous aluminum models. Still, combined with the flat display, the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s titanium frame looks gorgeous.
The base Galaxy S24 and Galaxy S24 Plus also got a slight redesign with less rounded, more rectangular edges.
Samsung switched the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s second zoom camera from an expected 10x optical zoom lens to a 5x optical zoom lens. Still, the Galaxy S24 Ultra can take photos with optical-quality 10x zoom with a pixel binning technique, which basically crops into the 5x lens’ 50MP sensor. That’s a fairly major change to one of the Galaxy Ultra lineup’s biggest party tricks.
It seems like a downgrade, but according to Samsung, the reason behind switching from a 10x lens to a 5x lens was driven by the way most people use the Galaxy Ultra’s zoom camera. The company said more people take photos around the 5x zoom range than in the 10x range. With that in mind, switching the second zoom lens from 10x to 5x makes more sense, as you’d get better quality photos in the 5x zoom range.
Zoom ranges beyond 10x, when digital zooming takes over, are enhanced with AI. Using AI to enhance digitally zoomed photos is a technique that many phone makers use, but it just doesn’t compare to photos taken with optical zoom, no matter how much AI Samsung throws at them.
On the topic of AI, Samsung made a big deal about AI and the features it enables in the new Galaxy S24 lineup. In collaboration with Google, Samsung has applied its “Galaxy AI” to photo editing and search features. One of the major new AI features includes the “Circle to Search” function from Google where users can circle or highlight any aspect of the phone’s screen to search for the entailed image or information. It works surprisingly well, and I find myself missing it when I’m testing a phone that doesn’t have the feature.
AI also powers Samsung’s take on Google’s Magic Eraser and Magic Editor, which lets you move or remove objects (or subjects) in photos from the Samsung Gallery app. Both features are best used on smaller objects, and they’re not very good at the moment. Google’s equivalent features on Pixel phones do better here.
The phones also have typing-based AI features designed to help you write in an appropriate tone of voice, depending on who you’re writing to. Among the other new features in the Galaxy AI suite is a “Live Translate” function that enables two-way voice and text translations of calls in real time.
And for the Galaxy S24 Ultra with the S Pen, AI can summarize your hand-written notes, automatically format them digitally, and check spelling and grammar. These work surprisingly well, and they’re worthy features for an upgrade if you’re a fan of Samsung’s S Pen.
To protect the new phones, check out our guides to the best Galaxy S24 cases, best Galaxy S24 Plus cases, or best Galaxy S24 Ultra cases.
